Reconcilliation warning dialog bug

[Ian Konen]

On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 4:28 PM, David J. Bakeman <dbakeman at comcast.net> wrote:
> On 10/28/2013 09:24 AM, Ian Konen wrote:

> But if you change the amount an Imbalance is created and if you change
> the amount for the reconciled account you get the warning again.  You

No, I think you're mistaken.  I just tested it (on a test file...not
my personal finances!).  From a brand new set of accounts:

1.  Enter a transaction from checking to expense (Say $100 for a
utility bill, so credit Assets:Checking $100 and debit
Expense:Utilities $100).
2.  Reconcile the checking account, including that particular
transaction.  Note the "y" next to it in the checking account
register.
3.  Open the Expense:Utilities account register, make sure the view is
set to basic ledger and note that the transaction is not marked as
reconciled (that's okay, it's because the split on the expense side
isn't reconciled.)
4.  Modify the value from within the Expense:Utilities (change it to
$75 for example) and note the lack of a warning dialog.
5.  Now display the individual splits and/or go back to the Checking
account register and note that the checking account's side of that
transaction has been modified to match the new value rather than
placing a $25 discrepancy in Imbalance.

This is particular to this one mode of entry:  Rather than forcing you
to type the same value twice (or make the same modification twice) for
"simple" two-split transactions, GnuCash applies the reasonable
assumption that you just want each account (the register you're
viewing and the one entered in "transfer") to have the same magnitude
split (one credit and the other debit).  If you display splits for the
transaction before entering values, or you leave the register in
autosplit or transaction journal mode then you don't encounter this
bug, because you do see the Imbalance account getting invovled, but
you also have to type twice when entering simple transactions.

Now you could argue I shouldn't be modifying transaction values from
the expense register, and I usually don't.  Like a lot of users (I
would imagine) I appreciate the convenience of typing the transaction
value once, and find it easier to enter manual transactions from a
checking account or credit card because I have many more expense
accounts than spending accounts (not sure what the proper term is but
you know what I mean).  But I do open expense and income accounts for
viewing frequently, and could easily modify a transaction by mistake.

I don't know if it's version or OS specific; I'm running 2.4.13 on Win 7.

>
> On the other hand I was recently very happy that I could change the
> unreconciled parts of several splits(The amount in the reconciled
> account was correct but I had gotten the splits to the other accounts
> wrong) without undoing the reconciliation and not having to deal with
> another dialog.

I agree: I am actually pretty bad about changing my mind how I want to
categorize expenses and I also appreciate I can keep my checking and
credit cards accounts reconciled and balanced while mucking around
with expense categories.

I do sometimes modify the description on a reconciled split and think
I could probably live without the warning dialog, but that's a minor
complaint.  I'd rather GnuCash be overly cautious about warnings like
that.


>>
>> I understand why it's the individual splits that are reconciled and
>> not the transaction as a whole (paying my credit card from my checking
>> account, for example, creates a transaction I reconcile twice: once
>> with each account statement).  I could also see how you wouldn't want
>> to lock out my ability to modify other splits in the same transaction
>> as a reconciled split (re-categorizing expenses for example).  But
>> this handy register entry functionality that allows me to only type in
>> a transaction value once also defeats the protection of the warning
>> dialog, and probably should not.
>>
>
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-- 
Ian Konen
iankonen at gmail.com
www.linkedin.com/in/iankonen
978-821-6498